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Overlord -- a review


There was a movie released back in the 1980s that starred Tim Thomerson, Timothy Van Patten, and Art LaFleur that was called Zone Troopers. Released by the Charles Band studios (for whom Thomerson would star in Dollman, and the Trancers series) Zone Troopers was a fun B-movie about American soldiers who come across an alien spaceship in Italy during the Second World War, and their efforts to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis. Zone Troopers just couldn't be taken too seriously--it was just an enjoyable popcorn flick, and its makers knew it.

When Overlord, with its same basic storyline--American soldiers during World War Two encounter an otherworldly threat--first premiered, I was looking forward to seeing it because of some of the great reviews that it received. Overlord was the code word for D-Day, the Allied assault on Nazi-occupied Europe that started on June 6, 1944. Overlord, the movie, deals with members of the 101st Airborne who dropped behind the lines the night before the invasion to blow up a German base.



Yet at this same base, they come across Nazi scientists experimenting on humans with a serum that makes them super powerful--with the tone being more like a darker, horror-movie version of Captain America. When I first saw Overlord, I was expecting a really cool cross between Saving Private Ryan and the Re-Animator.

Instead, what I basically got was Zone Troopers: Part Two.

Which is not to say that Overlord was really bad. It had its moments. The CGI worked very well to recreate a really exciting opening sequence showing the troops flying over enemy territory while under fire from German anti-aircraft guns below them. And the climax is extremely well done. Yet while it tries to vividly recreate moments from the Second World War, even down to the smallest details, like the DC-3 planes that carried the troops to their drop zones, Overlord seemingly ignores the most basic historical accuracy regarding the war in favor of popcorn-pleasing moments. Which is what ultimately makes it a B-Movie.



And that’s not a bad thing; as I’ve said before, Zone Troopers, for all of its goofiness, was still a lot of fun. But it was more frustrating to see Overlord descend into B-Movie blandness because of its outstanding production design that puts the viewer in a French village that’s occupied by the Nazis, as well as a forbidden laboratory where unspeakable experiments are being performed. And the acting from the entire cast is also superb.

Yet whatever elements that makes this film aspire to be more than what it appears get swept away whenever Overlord wallows in its silly B-Movie trappings, like having its heroes wander around enemy territory in the middle of the night while loudly talking to each other. It’s still enjoyable in terms of a B-Movie, but Overlord’s lack of ambition prevents it from being a truly great film that might have transcended its genre, and that’s a shame.--SF



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